Site Mobile Navigation

A Deal Is Reached to Name a Victor in Haiti's Election

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 15 - The front-runner in last week's presidential election, René Préval, is expected to be declared the winner as part of an agreement by leaders of Haiti's interim government to retabulate the votes, a high-ranking official of the Organization of American States said Wednesday night.

The agreement, scheduled to be announced Thursday, is a result of marathon negotiations by Mr. Préval, government officials, foreign diplomats and international observers, including the Organization of American States. Details were still being worked out, and a United Nations official cautioned that the deal could still fall apart.

The official from the Organization of American States, who insisted on anonymity because of the fragile nature of the agreement, said that loopholes in Haitian electoral law might allow the government to discard an estimated 85,000 blank ballots included in the original tally. By excluding them, Mr. Préval's lead would increase from 48.7 percent of the votes to slightly more than 51 percent.

Under election rules, the winner from the Feb. 7 election needs 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a run-off.

Mr. Préval's nearest rival, Leslie Manigat, had less than 12 percent of the vote.

An adviser to Mr. Préval, who confirmed the agreement was close to conclusion, said that international electoral authorities had also indicated they had begun recovering a substantial number of ballots that had not been immediately turned in to a tabulation center after the polls closed last week, and the adviser said that those ballots had also raised Mr. Préval's standing.

Mr. Préval, an agronomist who served as president from 1996 to 2001, won the overwhelming support of this country's poor masses. He is a protégé to former President Jean-Bertand Aristide, also considered a champion of the poor, who was forced from office by a violent uprising led by the elite minority two years ago.

The agreement to declare Mr. Préval the next president was aimed at putting an end to the two years of political turmoil that have crippled this country since Mr. Aristide fled into exile, and was reached during talks among leaders of Mr. Préval's Lespwa Party, the interim government, the Provisional Electoral Council, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the O.A.S. and ambassadors from the United States, France, Canada, Brazil and Chile. The talks started Monday, after early tallies indicated Mr. Préval would not win enough votes to avoid a runoff, and his supporters paralyzed cities across the country with protests and flaming barricades.

Mr. Préval, who had been waiting for election results in his hometown, Marmelade, was rushed back to the capital on a United Nations helicopter Monday afternoon. On Tuesday morning, he delivered an address to the nation, charging that the tabulation had been rigged against him and demanding that final results be withheld pending a review.

Mr. Préval urged his supporters to continue their protests, but to keep their demonstrations peaceful. Still, he made clear that if the government forced him into a runoff, he would protest the decision, and so would his supporters.

Fritz Jean, a supporter of Mr. Preval and former president of the Central Bank, applauded the agreement, saying, "This is a political solution to a political problem that was necessary because of the widespread fraud that threatened to undermine the election and the will of the people."

"Those blank votes go beyond logical explanation," he said. "To believe that people walked hours to vote, and then waited in line for hours to cast blank ballots, it defies logic."

Voicing the sentiments of many people's worries about the precarious state of Haiti's government, he added: "The country could not have withstood the pressure of waiting for a second round. We need to move as quickly as possible to reconciliation."

"All the efforts we made for a democratic transition could be lost," said a human rights advocate, Jean-Claude Bajeuxö. "We are going right back to where we have always been where the crowds on the street, not elections, have the last say. We are close to losing an historic opportunity."

The deal was worked out during a day when allegations of irregularities had begun to intensify.

On Tuesday night, dozens of boxes containing thousands of ballots were found in a dump a few miles north of the capital.

Many of the ballots had not been marked. Some, though, had been marked for Mr. Préval, leading organizers of his campaign to suggest they were proof of an effort to steal victory from their candidate.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Opponents of Mr. Préval, along with several international election observers, wondered though whether his campaign workers had planted the boxes of ballots. They said the ballots might be part of an effort to incite the crowds of Préval supporters whose protests in recent days have paralyzed cities across Haiti, using bullying to put him in power.

Whether the ballots were dumped or planted, the discovery added to questions here and abroad about the credibility of elections considered crucial to setting Haiti back on the road to democracy.

"Unthinkable! Unimaginable! Unbelievable!" said Charles-Poisset Romain, a sociology professor and university rector who was one of the 33 candidates in last week's presidential race, referring to the discovery at the dump in an address on national radio. "A speedy investigation must be conducted."

But Mr. Préval's accusations of fraud halted the tabulation of votes before it was finished.

Furthermore, though the Provisional Electoral Council vowed there had been no manipulation or serious irregularities, the discovery at Trutier struck a blow to the confidence in the election and to the peace it had brought to this troubled nation.

John Manes, a lanky 30-year-old standing near the dump on Wednesday in a Préval T-shirt and cap, said he had seen trucks entering the area the day after the elections.

"Now they have to give Préval the power," he said, "because we have solid evidence they stole our votes."

A 20-year-old man, who gave his name as Artiste Belecan, said, "It's a terrible situation when people vote and then see their ballots for Préval discarded."

Cilius Apolon, 33, walked over the discarded ballots on Wednesday, saying: "I got up very early in the morning to vote last week. This shows disrespect for the Haitian people."

International electoral officials said an estimated 8 percent of the ballots cast were missing, at least half of them believed to be stolen or destroyed. Another 7 percent were voided because they were illegible.

But most of the challenges to the vote tally have focused on the estimated 85,000 blank ballots, about 4 percent of the 2.2 million votes cast.According to Haitian electoral law, blank ballots are counted as part of the total number of votes.

International electoral officials acknowledged that poll workers could have improperly recorded unused ballots as blank ballots. In at least two polling places, said one such official, nearly 100 percent of the ballots were recorded as blank.

But the international officials also said they suspected some cases of fraud, saying they found it had hard to believe that peasant farmers in rural areas would walk for hours, then stand in line for hours, to cast blank ballots.

Brazil had led a push by Latin American diplomats on Wednesday to discard the blank ballots and declare Mr. Préval president, diplomats said. In Brasília, the chief foreign relations adviser to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told reporters, "Considering the existing climate in the country, that would be the best solution."